Mar 26
Impressions: Battlefield: Bad Company beta (360)

When lawl first clued me into the fact that a new Battlefield beta would be arriving on the 360, I was immediately skeptical. I had never before played a Battlefield game, and from what I had heard, there was nothing special about the series. Regardless, I applied for a beta and was accepted. How does the Battlefield: Bad Company compare to other war shooter games out there? Hit the jump to find out!
Let me preface this impressions post by saying that I love shooters. Whether it be Halo 3, Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, Resistance or anything in between, I love nothing more than hunting down others and shooting them to pieces. I’ve played hundreds upon hundreds of hours of these games, and I like to think that I have a pretty good idea about what makes a shooter good. That said, let me continue with my impressions.
In the Battlefield: Bad Company beta, the game pits you and eleven others on one team against another twelve. The object of the multiplayer beta is for the team on offense to attack and destroy a number of crates of gold while the other team tries to keep the first from doing so. In all honesty, it’s a bit like Call of Duty 4’s Sabotage gameplay mode … actually, it’s precisely like that. Out of all the games that I’ve played, each team’s tactics are very predictable (everyone attacks with tanks and choppers in the beginning, snipers camp out in obvious spots, etc), and I was not surprised to find myself at the top of my team’s scoreboard.
I was, however, very surprised by how much this game felt like a downgraded clone of Call of Duty 4. The game uses almost the exact same controls as CoD4, allows for customizable weapon kits, and even offers upgrading ranks very similar to those in the Call of Duty. However, everything in Bad Company just seems worse; for instance, many times you will not know where you get killed from, as there is no valid indicator (such as a kill cam or something of the sort) that shows where you’re being shot from. In a game where you can be killed with one bullet to the head, this type of indicator is vital. The result from this is that you really end up not caring when you die, something that, in my opinion, kills a lot of the potential fun in the game.
Additionally, the weapons really aren’t that much different from one another (the two sniper rifles available in the game only differ by a tiny amount in how much damage they give), and the dog tags and awards that you get for completing certain objectives feel rushed and tacked on at the end.
Vehicle combat is one thing that sets this game apart from one like Call of Duty, but oftentimes I found that these tanks and aircraft so strongly overpowered infantry that it was just unfair to whatever side was on the receiving end of the battalion of gunfire that these craft can fire. However, developer Digital Illusions CE (DICE) made the wise decision to include fan boats with mounted rocket launchers on the front. Alligators beware!
All in all, however, BFBC feels like no more than a bad Call of Duty clone. At least DICE got one thing correct in naming it Bad Company; it really is a bad game.
Categories: Demo, Impressions, Upcoming Games, Xbox 36014 Comments so far
Leave a comment


I have a friend who loves the Battlefield games, because he wishes he were a helicopter pilot. The games have become almost entirely about vehicle combat, at least in his opinion.
You really know your history calling Battlefield a Cod clone
A real FPS expert for sure!
I’m not calling the entire Battlefield series a clone, but rather only this Battlefield game. It implements a LOT of the innovations that we’ve recently seen in Call of Duty 4, so much so that it looks and feels like it cloned CoD4.
I would say that battlefield and call of duty is two totally different games. call of duty has a different pace and is very similar to counter strike in my opinion (the visuals are extremely good). battlefield is more about bigger maps, vehicles and now the destruction (which I think really affects the gameplay).
So they might be similar except the map size, the vehicles, the destruction and the pace. But then again, which fps aren’t?
I’d have to somewhat agree with you istan. The only thing that I’d have to amend in your argument is that I feel like BFBC tries to be Call of Duty 4. The medal chest, upgradable weapon kits and leveling up feel so much like that of CoD4 that the likeness cannot be dismissed as anything other than DICE trying to mirror CoD.
But then again, art inspires art, right?
Do you enter the beta key in the market place?
Yeah, just enter it in the marketplace and it will let you DL the beta.
Art inspires art, that is true. I think that cod4 is an awesome game and I hope that battlefield will be as good. They have some bugs to fix for the final game but in my opinion it has potential to become something really good.
BF2 redefined multiplayer for me in the same way that CS did. Unfortunately BF:BC , while fun to play if your a BF fan , is so full of it’self that it hurts me to look at it. In there over-zealous bragging of the destruction level and how it would set the bar for next gen….they forgot simple shit that they had in their previous game
LIKE FUCKING PARACHUTES AND PRONE POSITION.
Not to mention taking 13 points of a damage from a blade of grass hitting my hair. Vehicles are overpowered to retarded heights now and even the demo class uses a shit ton of slow-to-load rockets to take em down. The game does have some saving graces though. Being able to go into pretty much anywhere , the artillery setup is fucking awesome , and we all love the smiley pin on the grenade. All this aside I’m still buying it out of respect to BF2. I doubt it will be as good…but hey.
-Rev
I cant see how its custom weapons and all that jazz is a copy of CoD4. As a fan of both game series (and i haven’t played this beta, just to be clear) I believe BF2 had unlockable weapons far before CoD did. And as far as i know, BF:BC has been in development too long for them to just steal ideas from CoD4. The dog tags were NOT tacked on, they were a massive success in BF2142, and had hundreds of thousands of people reaching for their knives for that close up, high risk kill.
wow this guy is gay why the hell would u want to know where the guy that killed u is at it makes it more realistic ur just bitching cause u cant kill for shit on this game stupid noob loser
Plzzz have somebody still a bf bc beta key code for me?? im searching 2 weeks for now im not finding it:( if somebody have find it or have one for me tnx,me email:real_madrid_70@hotmail.com me Gamertag on xbobx360:Flamurtje Tnxx for helping me Bye.
What a fucking retard, BF2 had unlock-ables and it came out in 2005, COD4? 2007. You make a gaming site and you don’t even know about that? Fucking stupid bitch. Wait, wait, dog tags……hmm BF 2142 2006, COD4, 2007. Again, more retarded shit spewed by a fucking COD4 fanboy.
BF2 had army ranks……hmm I wonder what fucking year it came out…..could it be 2005? Again your knowledge of games is fucking lame.